“Discover a landscape of contrasting colors, landforms, & textures”

Visit Arches and discover a landscape of contrasting colors, landforms and textures unlike any other in the world. The park has over 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks. This red rock wonderland will amaze you with its formations, refresh you with its trails, and inspire you with its sunsets.

The forces of nature have acted in concert to create the landscape of Arches, which contains the greatest density of natural arches in the world. Throughout the park, rock layers reveal millions of years of deposition, erosion and other geologic events. These layers continue to shape life in Arches today, as their erosion influences elemental features like soil chemistry and where water flows when it rains.

Arches is located in a "high desert," with elevations ranging from 4,085 to 5,653 feet above sea level. The climate is one of very hot summers, cold winters and very little rainfall. Even on a daily basis, temperatures may fluctuate as much as 50 degrees.

Native Americans never inhabited Arches on a year-round basis, though they certainly roamed the area searching for wild game, useful plants and rocks for tool-making. Petroglyphs near Wolfe Ranch are thought to have been created by Indians from the Ute/Paiute cultures.

While visiting, don't be surprised if you hear the crack of a whip and yelling about museums.. Arches National Park was also a filming location for 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

A great place to see. you can spend between 3 hours to a full day. If you are hoking then you need at least half a day. don't miss the balanced rock, tunnel arch, and many more.
We highly recommend to spend between half an hour to a hour more, and get to the arches park thru road 128 (from road 70, take exit 204 to Cisco), instead of the high way. It takes more time but the scenery is breath taking. A ranger in colorado national monument recommended us and it was a great tip.

Arches National Park will blow your mind if you have never seen anything like it before. The landscape is like an elevated island of old rock formations that have slowly been worn down by weather over years and years of erosion!

Once you enter the park there will be a few somewhat cool spots but keep driving cause the coolest stuff is further down near the end of the park! There is also a really sweet hike you can do through the canyon or out to the overly famous delicate arch!

Pro Tip: Head into the park early in the morning, have a big lunch in Moab during the day and head back for the evening. The park can get pretty busy during the day but seems to empty out just before sunset!

Absolutely Amazing! The things people have written are true, and the word epic is appropriate here, not for sandwiches and youtube videos. My wife and I wanted to do a couple hikes a day, with driving in between as neither of us are professional canyoneers! If youre like us, I recommend the scenic drive, stopping at every viewpoint, hiking the shorter trails to things like the balancing rock (0.3 miles but worth every second), the windows/turret arch (0.3 miles but probably the best short hike) and the skyline arch (0.4 miles but also simply stunning). There used to be an enormous boulder in this arch but it collapsed in 1976 and you can see the rockfall if you hike this flat and easy trail. Sand Dune Arch is supposed to be the easiest at 0.3 miles, and is great for kids but we skipped that one. We did all this in about 6 to 7 hours, but I know there's a lot of harder more rewarding trails and arches.

Loved this place! You can view the natural beauty of the rock formations from the car all the way to skilled hikes with a guild. The park rangers give free talks. Plan to stay in Moab, UT for a few days. Moab, UT is a fun town with many extreme sports to choose from. Arches is less crowded then Brice Canyon and Zion with has similar rock formations.

For someone from Florida, Arches blew me away. Early March was a great time to go. The weather was perfect. There are a ton of arches of varying difficulties to see. Definitely plans to spend hours on hours there. Don't rush anything and also don't forget to put the camera down and just enjoy it for it's natural beauty.

2015 update: Arches has been discovered. From March through October, the parking lots at Devils Garden, Delicate Arch/Wolfe Ranch or The Windows may be full anytime between 9am and 4pm. During these peak hours, expect travel times to be longer than expected along the scenic drive. If you find a parking spot and go for a hike, expect to see a lot of other visitors on the trail. It is not uncommon for hundreds of people to visit Delicate Arch at sunset. http://discovermoab.com/archesnationalpark.htm

This place is amazing! so much to see! I thought that I could just get in and get out. and I guess if you never got out of your car (which is an option I guess...) you could get through it in... oh I don't know, an hour and a half maybe two? I was there for about 8 hours. I love getting on the trails and up close to things. and there are lots of places to do that. after nearly a full day of literally running all over the place I felt like I'd seen 25% of it...

you can spend a lot of time in this place. if you're looking for a great camping option this should be on the list for sure, although the summer is pretty hot, not sure what the nights are like.
and if you only have a few hours it's still worth the stop because of the easy access to much of the park by car. you'll need to skip some of the trails if you don't have lots of time though. but you still get a good taste of what the park is about even if you only have a few hours.